


Some Kind of Jumanji Situation

by hufflepirate



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Bonding, Friendship, Gaming, Gen, Temporary Character Death, Video & Computer Games
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-21
Updated: 2018-07-21
Packaged: 2019-06-14 02:50:04
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 12,899
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15379068
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hufflepirate/pseuds/hufflepirate
Summary: After Allura and Lotor's trip to Oriande, Lance tries to give Lotor a chance and do a little bonding. When a freak power surge in the Castle turns their normal day of video gaming into a trip into a brand new game they've never played before, the bonding gets accelerated.





	Some Kind of Jumanji Situation

**Author's Note:**

> A thousand thanks to my lovely partner for this project, sagelynaive! She did the deeply charming artwork at the front and let me run wild with her Lance-and-Lotor-video-game-bonding idea.

Lotor pressed the button with his left thumb a moment too late, missing the power-up he'd been aiming for in the fraction of a second it took to remember which button he needed to pick it up. Lance laughed a moment later. As Lotor looked sideways to see Lance's side of the screen, the other car rocketed forward. Whatever Lance had done, it wasn't a power-up or a trick Lotor had learned yet, and he looked back down at his controller, hoping to rediscover a button he'd forgotten.

He looked up and narrowly avoided running into a wall, his virtual vehicle careening sideways as he overcorrected.

Lance bumped his elbow, leaning over dramatically as his vehicle zoomed through a tight curve on his side of the screen. Lotor's screen wasn't showing any kind of curve, and he tried in vain to speed up, but it was clearly too late.

As soon as the virtual confetti spread across his half of the screen, Lance leapt to his feet in a single, explosive movement, shouting. "Yes!!"

Lotor held back an impulse to sigh, throwing the controller aside and getting up, himself. "Well," he said, "Once again, you've proven your superiority in a test of a useless skill you'll never need." It was petty, and he knew it, but he'd initially had high hopes when the blue paladin suggested video games would be a good "bonding activity," and the boy had been testing his patience since the moment they started.

Lance moved toward him, looking momentarily guilty, and reached out to grab his arm. In another situation, Lotor might have turned the unexpected touch into a throw to get the paladin off of him, but he needed this new team to like him, so instead he just froze, turning a glare on him.

Lance let go with an uncomfortable chuckle, running a hand through the back of his hair. "Hey, no, sorry, man." When he first got here, Lotor would have wondered if the translation tech was working right, but he was starting to get used to the... interesting way the paladins spoke. "Let's try again," Lance suggested, "We'll try a game I've never played before. We just got that new combo pack Pidge found with those traders. That'll be more even, 'cause I don't have any practice. I'll even let you pick which game!"

The boy's quick glance at the door as he was talking suggested that this "bonding" was either forced or coerced or, worse, a distraction while he bought time for someone else to do... something. Something tricky.

Lotor narrowed his eyes. "Why?" he asked. The blue paladin lied the most out of all of them, as far as he could tell, pretending all the time to be something or someone he wasn't, but he was also, as far as Lotor could tell, the worst liar of the lot when he was actually lying about something specific.

Lance glanced at the door again and then sighed, deflating. "Look, man, I didn't wanna mention, but ever since you and Allura went on your little vision quest and she decided to trust you, she's been asking us to make an effort. So this is me. Making an effort. Just give it one more try!"

Lotor allowed himself a sigh this time. How was it that this paladin was the most frequently disingenuous and then he could turn around and be _earnest_ like this? Lotor would think it was a trick, again, but he'd been with the paladins long enough to suspect that this was just par for the course with Lance.

"Very well," he agreed, hesitantly. He thought for a moment that he ought to reward the transparency with more transparency, but he couldn't bring himself to admit that he _did_ want to get along with the paladins, now that he was here with them.

Lance moved quickly, bouncing toward the machine to change out the game, and Lotor sat back down in front of the couch before he could think better of it. When the new game opened, it gave them several options, and Lance turned toward him, eyebrow raised.

He read through the options. One of them was pretty clearly based on some kind of earth vehicle, and he immediately counted that one out. The others were harder to decide between, since he didn't know anything about them, but he didn't want to seem uncertain. "Let's play _Hidden Temple of the Olmec_ ," he said decisively, "Since you said you want a 'bonding' experience, like Allura's."

Lance turned toward him with a grin. "Oh, yeah, I get it! 'Cause you went to a temple thing on your vision quest. That's almost funny, dude."

"Yes," Lotor answered sarcastically, "Almost." He knew Lance thought he was the funny one, but he really didn't see it, himself.

Lance's glance away looked a little embarrassed, and Lotor couldn't help feeling good about that. He probably shouldn't, since he was trying to get along with the paladins, but old habits died hard and he always _did_ like having the upper hand. The paladin selected the temple game, ears turning a little pink while he was facing away, and then came back to sit beside him while the opening screen played its background music.

Lotor forced himself to focus on the screen. The mechanics of watching one thing and doing another, when the thing wasn't real and the action wasn't directly related to the thing he was looking at, were surprisingly difficult.

He needed to stop letting the paladin get in his head and start attacking the problem, and ridiculous mechanics be damned. He could win this game. He needed the paladins to like him, but he also needed to prove he could _do_ this.

"You ready?" Lance asked.

Lotor nodded back, a gesture he'd picked up from the paladins and that didn't seem to require any accompanying words. Lance pushed the start button, and Lotor leaned forward, watching the screen intently as it started to zoom in on a jungle, captions at the top in the paladins' language that Lotor couldn't read and Lance seemed to be skipping too fast to read, either.

He was about to say something about it, when he heard a loud noise and one of the castle's alarms went off. His hands tightened instinctively around the controller, even though he knew it wasn't useful for anything. Before he could let go of it, instead, the lights started to flicker in their room.

"Whoa," Lance said beside him.

Lotor wanted to make fun of him for it, but as the flicker intensified to a strobing flash, he suddenly understood the feeling. He tried to put the controller down and get up to investigate, but now his fingers wouldn't move, locked around the controller, and he could feel some kind of energy running up his arms.

The paladin cursed beside him, this time, and he didn't want to make fun of that at all. Then the energy found its way to the center of his chest and all of a sudden he felt like he was being stretched, and everything was going white.  

 

* * *

 

The sensation of falling was familiar, if unexpected. Lance could see the ground speeding toward him out of the whiteness, coming up too fast for him to do anything but get his hands up to protect his face. He landed hard on his stomach, feeling the wind being driven out of him, but it actually wasn't as painful as he'd expected, or at least, his arms didn't seem to be injured from the awkward landing.

He got up to his feet, examining himself for injuries. He seemed fine, but that wasn't his only concern. How had they gotten here? Where _was_ here?

"What are we _wearing_?" a voice asked next to him, sounding vaguely displeased. He turned to find Lotor dressed in the same tan button-down shirt and brown cargo pants he was wearing. A hand to his back proved they also had matching knapsacks.

"I mean, if we're gonna suddenly be in the jungle, at least we're dressed for it?" Lance answered.

Lotor looked sideways at him, like he couldn't believe it. " _This_ is what humans consider 'dressed for the jungle'?"

Lance had no good answer to that or to the original question, not when he couldn't make sense of anything that was happening yet. He swung his knapsack off his back to check what was in it, ignoring the dig and taking a deep breath to calm himself down. He was hoping something in there would help him figure this out, but it didn't, really.

At least some of the stuff was cool. "Sweet!" he said, "A machete!"

At that, Lotor raised an eyebrow and dug into his own knapsack, pulling out his machete and swishing it around in the air to feel it out. He frowned slightly, drawing it closer to look at it.

"It's for trees and stuff," Lance explained, before Lotor could be snotty about it. "It's not really meant for fighting people."

"Obviously not," Lotor said, with a faint distaste. "I take it this is some kind of exploration game, then?"

Lance shrugged, trying not to show his anxiety as he went back to his knapsack. Better to stay positive, or at least calm, if he was going to be - apparently - leading some kind of jungle expedition with an alien who'd never even heard of a video game a few weeks ago. "I don't know, man," he answered, "I've never played it before."

"I'm surprised you still play those pointless controller games when you have better-simulated games like this one."

Lance stopped examining the other object in his pack, some kind of power bar, and looked up at Lotor. He could feel that he was blushing, and he wished he weren't. "Oh. No, man, it, uh - it definitely was not supposed to do this. I had kind of wondered why you weren't freaking out more."

Lotor's eyes narrowed.

"Not that you _should_ be freaking out!" Lance added, hurriedly, "I mean, just 'cause it wasn't supposed to do this doesn't mean it can't be fun! Like, it's _awesome_ , right?"

"What do you mean, it was _not supposed to do this_?"

"I mean... we're not actually supposed to be _in_ the game," Lance said "We're definitely supposed to be back on the ship. Something went weird when all the lights were flashing."

Lotor's eyes were still narrowed. "So this is _not_ , in fact, a simulation."

Lance shrugged again. "I guess? I mean, it _could_ be. But the ship's never done one of those before, either, so I'm gonna guess that it's not. I'm gonna guess it's some kind of... _Jumanji_ situation."

Lotor's face relaxed a little, tension easing around his eyes. "Ah, and these _Jumanji_ situations - have you been in one before?"

Lance blushed. "Oh, no, man, it's not -" He'd had a hard enough time explaining video games and they _had_ video games to show him as an example, so trying to explain that _Jumanji_ was a movie would probably take longer than it was worth, if he could get it across to Lotor at all. "It's super rare," he said, instead. "I mean... I'm pretty sure it's literally only happened like, three times."

Lotor was looking at him like he was growing an extra head, and Lance couldn't stand it. He went back to his knapsack, pulling out the map and the compass, and leaving behind the machete and protein bars for now.

The flashing dot on the map had to be either where they were supposed to go or where they already were, and Lance wished it were labeled better. The other things on the map were mostly numbers, plus a large image of a pyramid that was probably the temple itself.

There was a number one, so Lance decided the dot must be where they already were.

Lotor looked over his shoulder. "Where are we going?"

Lance looked up, but he couldn't see any obvious landmarks. He pointed at the number one on the map, instead. "There."

Lotor nodded, glancing at the compass. "So, this is-"

"The compass points north," Lance answered.

Lotor nodded, absorbed in the map again for a moment, then looked up. "Very well. I suppose we get out of here by making it to the temple?"

"Yeah," Lance said, "We gotta do the numbers in order, then the temple."

Lotor looked stiffer than usual as he stalked off into the jungle, and Lance could tell he was uncomfortable, but at least he seemed to know where he was going.

 

* * *

 

Lotor didn't like this. He didn't like this at _all_. Having the paladin trailing along behind him, chattering about something or other, didn't make it better. This was all supposed to be part of his plan. He was supposed to be _doing_ this for the future. But this? _This_ part wasn't like that. _This,_ whatever this was, wasn't part of the plan and it was, frankly, unsettling.

In front of a small building with a large gate, he stopped, whirling on Lance. "What are we supposed to do here?"

Lance shrugged. "I don't know. Go in?"

Lotor couldn't stop himself from scowling at the boy. That was _really_ all he had?

Lance rolled his eyes. "Come on. We're not gonna get home just _standing_ here."

He pushed open the door to reveal a long, narrow hallway, lit by faint torches. Lotor couldn't see very far down the hall, which was almost cut off a few yards in front of them by an impenetrable darkness that didn't seem fully natural. Lance charged in, apparently not bothered by the strange darkness. It must be a standard game feature, then, or at least a common one.

"Look out for traps," Lance shouted back over his shoulder, "This seems like the kind of game that has traps."

Great. Another thing he couldn't control. At least he wasn't stuck using that stupid controller anymore.

As they walked, the torches behind them flickered out, and new ones ahead of them flickered on, revealing a little bit more of the dim corridor. It was mildly unsetting, but at least it was consistent, and once he settled into the rhythm, Lotor could imagine the purpose of such a system for the game, especially if, as he was still trying to wrap his head around, it was meant to be played from the outside, like the controller games they'd been playing before.

A few yards down the hallway, he suddenly felt a rush of _something_ wash over him. Lance shuddered ahead of him, clearly feeling it too. "That's not good."

"What is it?" he asked.

Lance slowed down, looking over his shoulder again. "If I had to guess, I'd say the background music probably just changed."

"There is no background music," Lotor answered, impatient.

"Not on the inside," Lance said, dropping his voice strangely. Lotor had spent enough time with the paladins to recognize that Lance was doing some kind of a bit, or making some kind of a joke. He sighed. If he'd gotten to pick which paladin to be stuck in a game with, he would _not_ have chosen Lance.

"I want to get through this," he said icily, "What do we _do_ about the music?"

Lance grinned at him. "We get ready for a trap! Or a fight. One or the other."

Lotor knew, cognitively, that he shouldn't charge past Lance. Lance had done this kind of thing before. He'd be better at recognizing the cues in this weird world. But he'd never liked being on his back foot, and he'd never trusted Lance much, and something about the boy's cheesy, delighted grin rubbed him the wrong way hard enough for him to ignore the nagging voice telling him not to and shove past him anyway.

Four steps later, he heard Lance gasp. One step after that, he was falling, again, through a hole he was certain had not been there before.

"Wait!" Lance called, a second too late.

Lotor flung his arms up, trying to catch the edge of the hole, but he was too far gone - until Lance grabbed his wrist with one hand. It stopped his fall, mostly, his shoulder nearly pulling out of its socket before he found himself jerking slightly downward again as the paladin couldn't quite hold him up.

He looked down to see his feet dangling just inches above a pit of spikes. Lance had been right about the traps, apparently, but Lotor wasn't about to tell _him_ that.

He took a breath to collect himself, then looked up at the Paladin. Lance had slipped to one knee, his free hand braced against the top of the hole, and Lotor wasn't sure he trusted the boy's wiry limbs to keep him up.

Lance's face relaxed a little as Lotor grabbed the edge with his free hand, too, and then the paladin was hauling him up like he'd never been nervous about it at all.

"Sorry man," he said, once they were both on solid ground again, "I didn't see the difference on that tile fast enough."

Lotor nodded, releasing Lance's hand and brushing himself off. Any other time, he would be angry, but the boy seemed genuinely apologetic, so he shrugged it off instead, examining the hole and then reaching his machete toward the other side to prod at the floor. It seemed to be holding fine. "Is the other side clear?" he asked Lance. "What differences are we looking for?"

"Yeah, it looks fine for a little bit. The traps like you fell in are greyer tiles, and they've got a crack pattern in them. I don't know if there are other kinds of traps, though."

He nodded. That wasn't clever, and he should have seen it. He wouldn't miss it again. He'd been foolish, letting his own uneasiness about being in a situation he hadn't planned for get the best of him, but now he was focused. He could do this. And then he could get back to the master plan.

 

* * *

 

Lotor kept walking ahead of him, missing the traps now that he knew what to look for, and Lance was torn between his desire to shove past and take the front himself, and the desire to let Lotor keep walking into the game's tricks until he could figure out exactly what kind of game they were in.

For a while, he hung back, watching. A shout was enough to keep Lotor from stepping on what looked like a pressure plate, one that would apparently have sent blow darts or arrows at them, judging by the holes in the wall beside it as they stepped over it.

Missing the second trap seemed to give Lotor more confidence, and he sped up, looking back less often. Something about it rubbed Lance the wrong way, and he gave into his other impulse. He was the expert here, and if Lotor was going to act like he knew everything after identifying one trap, Lance was just going to have to _take_ the role of leader from him by force. Or, at least, by speed.

When he came alongside Lotor, he elbowed him a little to get past, putting on his best innocent face to keep the alien from turning it into a fight. Instead Lotor responded by brushing past him with a little "accidental" shoulder bump, and Lance thought he should probably be annoyed, but couldn't help enjoying the moment of petty normalcy. He hip checked Lotor as he retook the front position, and was pleasantly surprised when Lotor responded with another friendly jostle. He'd been half expecting this to turn into a real fight, because Lotor didn't seem the most patient, but maybe Game Lotor was different.

They were still bumping each other when another wave of cold washed over Lance and he and Lotor stopped in their tracks, still too close together in the narrow corridor.

Lotor's eyes were narrowed as he looked over, whispering, "What should we be expecting?"

Lance bit his lip. The traps they'd already found had been pretty obvious, so he'd be surprised if this cue was for a trap. He took a step back, making enough room to dig into his knapsack for his machete. "I can't be sure," he answered, "But my guess is - not a trap."

Lotor adjusted his grip on his own machete, nodding. "You're expecting some kind of encounter, then, yes?"

"Yeah," Lance answered. "I think there's something ahead of us where the tunnel gets darker, and I think if we go a couple more feet, we're gonna be able to see it."

Lotor nodded in response, peering forward into the darkness. Then he nodded a second time, a little more finally. "I shall go first."

Lance might have said something about that, if he'd had time, but Lotor was already moving, and as he took a step forward, the next torch down the hall lit up, revealing a sudden widening of the hallway, which ran almost immediately into an enormous pit. Lance almost laughed. The pit was clearly too wide for them to jump over, but he'd been expecting so much worse.

"That's not an encounter," Lotor commented, deadpan.

This time Lance _did_ laugh. Game Lotor was _definitely_ different than Regular Lotor. The Galra looked at him like he didn't get the joke, but at least he didn't seem offended this time.

Lance looked around for anything that might help them cross the gap, stepping past Lotor to examine the wide ledge at the end of the hall.

Sure enough, once he reached the ledge, he found a wooden chest off to the side. He opened it with his free hand, keeping his machete ready in case something jumped out.

It didn't. Instead, the chest creaked open to reveal a long Indiana-Jones style whip. Lance pulled it out of the trunk to look at it, and Lotor stepped up beside him, peering into the trunk, too. Lance was pretty sure that the second whip hadn't been in the chest until Lotor got close to it, which he'd need to remember for the future.

Lotor cracked his whip like he'd used one before, and Lance felt both jealous and nervous about that, but then Lotor was looking at him like he was waiting for something, and Lance shoved both emotions away, focusing back on the problem at hand.

"There's gotta be some kind of grip thing," he said, "Some place to wrap these around so we can swing over." Lotor nodded, looking over the pit, but Lance spotted the loop first. It was what looked like some kind of a tree branch extending down from the ceiling and then back up again, strangely symmetrical and probably, if he could touch it, unrealistically smooth.

Lance reached backward, trying to flip the other end of his whip toward the branch, but it felt weird and unwieldy, and he mostly just ended up waving it awkwardly out over the pit. Lotor tutted, and he felt his face get hot.

"Look, it's not as easy as it looks!"

Without saying anything, Lotor flicked his whip up to grab the bar, then pulled at just the right angle to get it to let go and come back again, in spite of the fact that Lance was 95% sure whips didn't _do_ that outside of the movies. "Show-off," he grumbled.

"So I suppose the idea is to release the other end from the branch at the right time to fly to the other side?"

"Yeah."

"And if we miss?"

"I mean, probably we die."

"Here, or in the real world?"

Lance hadn't been looking forward to this conversation. He hadn't even let himself think too hard about it, because even thinking the words made his stomach feel heavy, and that never made it easier to think. "Probably both," he answered.

Lotor was quiet for a moment, just staring at the pit. "In that case," he said, "I suppose I ought to give you a few whip-wielding lessons."

 

* * *

 

At the end of the first temple, they came to a wide door, and Lotor half expected another rush of cold, but it didn't come. "What should we expect on the other side of the door?" he asked, half surprised how much easier it felt to ask the paladin's advice already, even though they hadn't been in here for all that long. They'd settled into a balance, once he'd been able to help the boy with his whip technique, and asking questions wasn't so bad.

Lance wrinkled his face up, thinking. Finally, he said, "I think this is some kind of training level. We've had one thing at a time and picked up some new tools along the way, and it seems like it's just preparing us. So if we're going to get attacked in this game at all, I bet it happens first on the other side of that door."

Lotor nodded. "How likely do you think it is that we'll be attacked?"

Lance met his eyes seriously. "I mean, pretty likely. We've only used our machetes once, on those vines, but we had them from the start instead of getting them out of a chest, so I get the feeling we're supposed to be using them for a bunch of things and - well, I know I _said_ they weren't for fighting people when we pulled them out, but it's still pretty likely it'll be for both."

Lotor almost growled at that, but held himself back. No sense in letting the boy know he was uncomfortable going into a fight with such a poorly balanced weapon. He could fight with anything, and he _had_ , but it wasn't ideal, and he was still just on edge enough about this strange world they were in that the addition of a mediocre weapon had him nervous in spite of his long history of fighting with a disadvantage.

He got out his machete, watching the boy do the same. Lance was usually a shooter, shaping his bayard into various forms of long-range weapons, but if he was uncomfortable with a blade in his hand, he wasn't showing it, either.

Lotor looked Lance in the eye for a moment, both of them standing up straight, chins up, and then when he couldn't bear to delay any more, he nodded. Lance opened the door, and all of a sudden they were standing inside it, having teleported five feet forward without walking.

Both of them were surprised by the small skip in space, but when the first snake lunged at them, Lance adjusted faster, hacking its head off with a surprised, "Whoa!" It disappeared in a puff of smoke, leaving Lance bent over nothing, his arm flung out and his machete against the empty floor. Lotor briefly saw a flash of gold before that, too, vanished with a clinking noise.

The second snake was almost as fast as the first, and Lotor took it out before Lance could pull his machete back, keeping it from biting the other boy. A glance around showed another set of two snakes a few feet ahead, slithering toward them surprisingly slowly, and a fifth snake at the back of the room, sitting on top of a golden chest, much fancier than the chests they'd seen so far.

Lotor didn't need to ask Lance what to do, this time. If the game had any surprises for them now, he'd just hack his way through. He ran forward, taking out the two snakes in the middle almost effortlessly as Lance started running, too, his feet loud in the space behind him. They reached the end of the room together, stabbing the last snake almost in unison. It disappeared in another puff of smoke, leaving behind a coin that puffed away as soon as Lance's knuckles brushed it, and they opened the trunk together, revealing a round, copper pendent that floated into the air, light glowing around it.

Lotor hesitated, not sure he trusted the glow, but Lance reached for it immediately. "Sweet! These must be what we're here for. We probably need them before we can get into the temple at the end."

As Lance shoved the pendent into his knapsack, Lotor expected him to rub in having grabbed it faster, or to tease him for having hesitated. Instead, Lance looked back up with a grin. "Good job, man! I think we've got this game. We just have to grind to the end. And go pick up the extra coins from those snakes. On principle."

Lotor wasn't sure which things were actually required, but he stepped toward the coins anyway, making them disappear into smoke as he touched them.

 

* * *

 

The levels got harder to navigate, and the snakes and other small creatures came more frequently, and the rooms with the pendants had larger and larger animal bosses to fight, but the two of them kept up, working increasingly well together, until they didn't even have to talk to coordinate their movement through minor bits of climbing or fights against the smaller creatures.

As Lance tucked the fourth pendant into his backpack, he couldn't deny it anymore - he was getting bored. He'd spent the entire last level listing his favorite jungle animals in order, and even that side diversion wasn't enough to make up for the feeling that they'd settled in and were just _grinding_.

As they set off to level five, Lotor's silence, which he'd gotten used to ages ago, started to feel oppressive again, and Lance bit his lip for a moment. He'd been trying to stay positive, but _surely_ if he was bored, Lotor must be, too. He might as well acknowledge it. Mind made up, he caught up with Lotor, who was leading the way to the next level as usual, and flopped up against his shoulder with a groan. "I can't be the only one getting bored with this, right?"

Lotor's eyebrow shot up, and Lance grinned, pulling away far enough to shove Lotor gently in the side. "Don't pretend you're surprised _._ You picked a _boring_ game."

Lotor shoved back with a ghost of an _actual smile_ visible for a moment, and Lance felt a rush of accomplishment. The idea had been to have a bonding experience that was actually _fun_ , but the idea had also been to stay on the ship like a normal day, so what really counted, he was pretty sure, was that he'd made it to a little bonding moment.

"Of course it's boring," Lotor answered, "Humans made it. _Anyone_ could do better."

Lance shoved Lotor again, even though he didn't _really_ sound like he meant it. "Oh yeah?" he shot back, grinning, "Then do better! If the Galra made a video game, what would it be?"

The half smile faded off of Lotor's face. "We both know what it would be," he said, sounding suddenly bitter, like he hadn't when he was only teasing, "It would be about conquering the universe. Stripping planets bare and moving on." Lotor's eyes darted sideways, lightning fast, and Lance wasn't sure whether to force a smile or not, but either way, he wasn't fast enough.

"If _I_ made a game," Lotor said, "It would be different. Bigger. None of this big empty space between the levels. Everything would be the level. And you could find more than just some matching pendants."

"Ooh, yeah!" Lance said, trying to make up for the initial dumb question with a little extra excitement instead of pointing out that that was super vague, "More of an open world kind of a thing!"

"Open world," Lotor said slowly, like he was testing the words out. "Yes, I think that's what we'd all want, really, isn't it? A better future, infinite energy, and people working together instead of against each other."

Lance hip checked him again, "Hey, no getting serious. This is escapism! When we get back, you can go back to your master plan or whatever."

It was a relief to get to the entrance to the next level, because it _did_ sound nice, but something about Lotor when he got that way, all dreams for the future, always felt... off, somehow. But no. He was supposed to be giving Lotor a chance. This was giving him a chance.

Lance pushed the door open a little faster than usual, stepping into the first corridor of the next temple, which looked a little bigger than the last few.

 

* * *

 

Lotor hadn't expected ever to feel this comfortable in Lance's silly game, but now that he'd managed to drop his usual cover into conversation, even in this place, and he'd gotten into the rhythm of the game, his lingering discomfort with the video game had faded entirely.

As soon as Lance said he was bored, the levels had made a significant leap in difficulty, which he assumed was because they'd made it halfway through the game, but the boy had apologized anyway, for having "jinxed" them.

He hadn't known what to say at the time, but now that they were in level 6, and fighting their way through significantly more wildlife, he couldn't resist making a joke about it. Not with the excitement of combat running through him, the excitement he knew came from his father, that he usually tried to quash and that now - now - he almost laughed as he shouted, "Try not to jinx us again! I don't think we can afford it!"

Lance had his back to Lotor's, both of them fighting their way through the largest threat yet, a colony of dog-sized ants that had run out when they'd accidentally set off the temple's curse. They'd done that once before, in level 3, but a bigger temple meant a bigger curse, and he hadn't lost himself to the fight like this in a long time, hacking away at the bugs with all the joy of a well-trained Galra soldier.

Behind him, Lance whooped, like he felt the same bright excitement and Lotor allowed an actual honest-to-goodness smile to creep across his face, the kind he would usually stop.

When the ants finally stopped flowing into the room, and they could dispatch the last few, Lance turned to him, panting slightly, with a dopey grin. "I think -" he said, catching his breath, " _You_ should worry about not tripping any more curses," he took another deep breath, "instead of telling me not to jinx anything."

Lotor rearranged his grip on his machete, so that he could shove Lance lightly without it cutting him, when the boy's eyes suddenly widened. Before Lotor could turn around, Lance flung his machete over his shoulder, coming so close to his ear that Lotor almost checked to make sure his hair was still there. He wasn't sure what was behind him, but he could hear Lance's machete hit it as he was turning around, making a loud squelching sound that was accompanied by a horrifying scream.

The ant behind him was easily the size of a horse, and Lance's machete had landed squarely between its eyes, but instead of going still, it was lashing out. Lotor dove sideways, rolling away from one of its flailing limbs, and Lance scrambled backward, getting out of the way of its gnashing jaws.

Lotor got back to his feet, watching as the ant crashed down off its twitching legs, clearly unable to hold itself up anymore. It was still flailing, though, not any less dangerous as it died than it had been in its life, if he had to guess.

With a flying leap, Lotor sprang onto the beast's back, driving his machete into the joint between the head and thorax. The head came off, and the ant's dying throes slowed more quickly under his feet until it was still and then puffed away into smoke, leaving behind a flood of gold coins that produced another cloud of smoke as he brushed against them, getting back to his feet.

"Whew," Lance said, "We'd better be careful."

Lotor nodded, picking Lance's machete up off the ground in front of him and passing it back to the boy.

The next chamber of the temple seemed almost eerily empty after the full ant colony that had been in the last room, and the dust and cobwebs coating the floor did nothing to make it _less_ eerie. Lotor and Lance made their way slowly across, testing the floor in front of them with their machetes so they could be sure they wouldn't miss a trap hiding under the dust.

When the spider dropped down from the ceiling, they were too focused on the floor to see it.

Lotor felt the jaws closing around his shoulder before he knew the monster was there. Lance gasped, and he could hear the slicing sound of Lance's machete a few feet away, but he was trapped between the spider's hairy legs, and as he pulled his own machete up to hack at the beast, it let go of his shoulder, lunged forward again, with its feet on the ground now, and bit into his neck.

He heard his own strangled gurgle as if it was coming from somewhere or someone else, felt a flash of pain and then - he was gone.

For a moment, everything was blindingly white, and the noises of the jungle were replaced by a tinny, high-pitched song that he knew, from the other games they'd played, signaled failure. Was this - was this a way out? Lance had said if they died in the game, they died in real life, but could he - was there - for a moment, squinting forward, he almost thought he could see the room they'd left behind. Then, he was falling.

 

* * *

 

Lotor toppled from the ceiling, landing in the spot he'd disappeared from when he turned into smoke, and Lance felt a curse rip its way out of his throat. He'd managed to climb a series of ledges in the wall, getting away from the center of what he could now see was a full-scale spider's web on the floor, but now Lotor was nearly in the center of the web, and the spider had turned away from Lance to look at the new threat.

Lotor looked disoriented.

"Hey!" Lance shouted, trying to distract the spider so that Lotor could get his bearings, "Over here, you big - spider!"

It wasn't his best insult, but it didn't have to be. It just had to distract the spider, and it did. The beast's huge head turned back toward him and Lance scrambled up another ledge, whip held tightly in his hand. He'd switched to it to get a grip on some of the farther handholds on his way up here, but switching between weapons was a lot harder inside the game than it would have been on the outside, where he could just use a different button or pause and open a menu.

Lotor moved, dashing backward, away from the spider, which was good, but the spider moved too, which was bad. Lance snapped the whip toward the spider, cracking it just in front of its mandibles, but the noise didn't seem to mean anything to it, and it kept coming, walking up the wall much easier than he'd been able to scramble up it.

He couldn't go any farther up, but if he could get the right angle on a vaguely brown "tree root" spike a few feet over, he could swing to a lower ledge closer to the other doorway, and maybe he could get away before it bit him. He shot a quick glance over at Lotor, who had started climbing the wall on the other side. He guessed that was good. He _hoped_ that was good. He turned back to the spike, judging the distance and trying not to think about how quickly the spider was catching up to him.

As he flicked the whip out toward the spike, he heard Lotor shouting behind him, playing the distraction this time. If there were words, they weren't in any language his translator could pick up, but whatever the yell was, Lance just hoped it was working. He caught the spike and swung out and down, glancing back toward the spider only when he'd made it safely onto the ledge itself.

The spider was still coming after him. He cursed again, looking up toward Lotor.

The Galra was looking around the room, leaning away from his own wall with one hand on a small grip behind him so he could see better. Then he shouted again. "Lance! Look up!"

There was nothing right above him, but when Lance turned to glance at Lotor again, he realized the alien was pointing at the middle of the ceiling instead. The middle of the ceiling, where the spider had dropped down from. Where it had apparently dropped from a large hook, barely disguised as another tree root. A barely-disguised tree root he might be able to snag with his whip if he aimed for it after he was in the air. Lance grinned.

It was the most dangerous thing he'd done yet, but it was a classic video game move, and if he fell - well, Lotor had made it back, somehow, hadn't he?

The spider was coming close again, too close for delays or second guessing, and Lance made the leap, pushing off from the wall, aiming carefully and almost slipping as the end of the whip wrapped around the hook and the length of it pulled tight, swinging him toward the other wall fast.

He'd struggled to release the whip on some of the other long jumps, but he couldn't afford another swing this time, not with the spider clicking angrily behind him. Lotor's eyes were locked onto the hook, like he was thinking the same thing.

"Jump!" he yelled, "I'll catch you!"

Lance had less than a second to decide, but his grip wasn't perfect on the whip and Lotor was looking him in the eye now, arm outstretched, and he let go before he even realized he'd made the decision. Flying through the air with nothing in his hands was terrifying, but then Lotor had a hand around his wrist, and he could just focus on trying to catch the wall with his other hand.

He almost flattened Lotor as his body crashed into him, but Lotor had secured himself with his own whip, tying it around himself and the jutting handhold behind him, and they both grabbed each other tightly, and they stayed up.

On the other side of the room, the spider clicked angrily again, turning and running down the side of the wall even faster than it had run before.

Lance looked back at Lotor, their faces just inches apart.

"Door," Lotor ordered, pushing at his shoulder to turn him toward the exit, and since fighting giant spiders wasn't exactly at the top of his to-do list, Lance followed the order, hurrying along their ledge and climbing onto the next one. He _should_ tell Lotor that sometimes games wouldn't let you go through doors until you'd beaten their bosses. But he should also save his breath for climbing, and well - sometimes you just crossed a bridge when you came to it. Maybe they could just go through.

Reaching the end of the ledge nearest the door was a relief, and the fact that the spider had climbed up the wall to their height before it came sideways toward them was a bigger relief, but they weren't out of danger yet, and the short delay of looking back was apparently too much delay for Lotor. "Climb down, come on!"

Lance looked back at the spider, then down at the floor, but this whole room had been a nightmare, and Lotor had _died_ , but now he wasn't dead, but the spider had barely taken any damage from the machete, and his whole body was humming with adrenaline for the first time since their very first fight in here, and Lance took a leap of faith, jumping off the ledge and hitting the ground with a deep knee bend.

It hurt, but he didn't puff into smoke, and his legs still worked, and when he waved, Lotor jumped after him and they tumbled through the doorway together, hearing one last angry set of clicks before feeling the familiar warping feeling that meant they were about to be teleported five feet into the next room.

 

* * *

 

Lotor had never been more relieved to see a dimly lit, empty hallway. He turned around to make sure the spider hadn't followed them, and what had previously been an open doorway was now a blank wall. Somehow, that was less surprising than the fact that one breath later, his legs started to shake.

"Holy crap." Lance said, his hands held out in front of him like he was trying to brace himself against the empty air. " _Holy crap_."

"Yes," Lotor agreed, looking down at his own hands, which seemed to be shaking just as hard as his legs.

"You _died_."

"Yes."

" _Ho_ ly crap."

For a moment they just looked at each other, and then the paladin barreled forward, almost knocking him off his shaky legs. He'd seen the paladins hug each other, but they'd never hugged _him_ , and before he could think to put his arms around Lance in return, the boy had let go.

"I'm glad you're not dead," Lance said, looking more serious than Lotor had ever seen him. Then his face burst into a more familiar smile. "I guess we have more than one life."

"Huh," Lotor answered. He supposed he should have expected that. There _had_ been a certain number of cars you could crash before you lost automatically in the racing game. But this - _dying_ \- felt different than that. He clenched his hands into fists to get the shaking under control.

Lance looked away, digging into his knapsack again like he had at the beginning of the adventure. "Ok, I have my whip back, and that's convenient. See if anything in your pack has changed. I mean, I can tell you have your whip, so you probably have everything, but just... let's make sure."

It was a relief to have something to do. Something that wasn't running, or fighting the spider that had killed him. He slipped the knapsack off his back and peered inside, taking stock of his machete, his map, his compass, his unlit torch, and his - "I only have two snack bars now."

"Oh!" Lance said, "Got it! Those are our life counters! They must be. Maybe the idea is that you just get exhausted instead of dying, and you need more energy."

Lotor bit back a comment about the fact that it had certainly _felt_ like dying, because he knew by now not to expect this game to make complete sense. Instead, he just nodded. It was good to know he could die again before he died for good, but - it was also terrifying to think about. Dying once was enough for him. More than enough.

He felt more solid on his feet, now, mostly, but he must not have looked recovered, because Lance rubbed a hand through the hair at the back of his neck and said, "Anyway I'll, uhh - I'll go first the rest of the way through this temple, ok?"

Usually, he would have fought him on it, unwilling to appear weak in front of one of his new allies, but standing still was almost as bad as facing the spider again had been, and every breath just reminded him of that brief moment of not breathing, and he nodded, needing to move more than he needed to fight about how they should go.

Lance nodded back, but when he started off down the hall, he was moving slower than he had before, hovering closer to Lotor. If something jumped down at them now, it would catch them both. Lotor wasn't sure if that made him feel better or worse.

 

* * *

 

Lance was so relieved to see the final temple ahead of them that he raced forward, flinging his arms out to hug the building. The door was the biggest one yet, set into the front of a large pyramid that looked better built than the other temples they'd visited. The huge stones ringing the doorway were cut into perfect squares, and everything looked immediately bigger and grander.

He pulled away from the door, blushing a little as Lotor caught up. "Are you ready to go home?" he asked, "Just one more!"

Lotor had settled down since the whole dying thing, and the fact that they'd made it through the seventh level without triggering the building's curse had helped, but he still looked tight around his eyes. Lance forced his grin a little bigger, trying to encourage him.

"Of course I am ready."

He'd been cranky like this since dying, too, or at least, since he calmed down about the dying. Lance tried not to take it too hard. He didn't like thinking about Lotor's death, either. "I'm guessing we have to put these pendants in the holes in the door to open it," he said, looking up at the door, "And maybe match the pictures?"

Lotor examined the slots on the door, too, then nodded. "Seems simple enough."

 

* * *

 

Even a successful run through level 7 couldn't keep the memory of the spider's teeth from prickling at Lotor's shoulder as Lance slotted the last pendant into the door of the final temple. "Before we go," he said, stopping Lance long enough to catch one extra breath of outside air, "Make sure you don't trigger the curse on this one, either."

He expected Lance to strike back, reminding him it was _his_ decision to open the extra chest that had triggered the curse in the sixth level, but instead, the boy grinned. "Of course not!"

Something about it chafed at him. Lance was _supposed_ to argue back. He was _always_ the type to argue back. And if he wasn't - well, Lotor wasn't one for pity. He pushed one door while Lance pushed the other, entering beside the boy to prove he wasn't scared.

This temple was brighter than the others, with bigger torches lighting the hallway with bigger flames. It would have been reassuring, but the wave of cold that washed over him as he and Lance warped into the entryway was more intense than any of the ones they'd felt before, and that must mean that the music for this temple was already signaling danger.

"Quiznak," Lance said next to him, almost reflexively.

Lotor raised his chin, keeping control of himself. "Go carefully."

Lance nodded, stepping forward.

The moment his foot hit the ground, they heard a loud click and both froze. Nothing about the tile he'd stepped on looked different than the ones around it, and nothing was shooting or collapsing or rising up or attacking them. Lance looked over at him, both of them breathed, and just as Lotor was about to suggest that Lance keep going, there was another click.

Lance looked up, searching for the source of the sound, but Lotor had already looked above them and there was nothing. Lance took another step, and then a third, and the next click happened on the fourth step, but again, there was nothing, and again, waiting to look around just seemed to generate another click.

Lotor stepped forward, too. No click. Another step. Click. He froze, but there was nothing, and there had been nothing when Lance stepped here, and Lotor felt his stomach squeeze tightly, but forced himself to keep walking, even as tense as he was, and the next click came while his foot was in the air but still landed on his ears like a solid thing.

"Oh no," Lance said.

"Oh no, what?" he snapped.

"I think I know what the clicking is. Just... stand there and count steadily to yourself."

He did. The clicks fell in time, coming in a consistent, relentless rhythm. "It's keeping time," he said.

"Yeah," Lance answered. "And we've already been standing here way too long. This is a timed level."

For a brief, weak moment, Lotor almost let himself hope that wasn't what it sounded like, but he knew better.

Lance broke into a run, something he hadn't done before, with all the traps and tricks in the temples. "Hurry!" he said, "We've gotta beat the clock!"

Lotor hated it, but he ran too, following after Lance and hoping the speed didn't kill them.

 

* * *

 

Every wrong turn made it harder to keep up his cheerful face, but Lance couldn't give up. Lotor grabbed his arm and pulled him out of the way of a temple guard he hadn't even seen. The guards were just armor, empty and animated and unkillable, and every time they made a wrong turn, they seemed to pick up more of them.

They'd been running for too long. He didn't know how long, but he could _feel_ that time was about to run out, and not just because the clicks had doubled in speed half a room ago.

Two rooms ago, he would have made a point of scattering the guard completely, so it would take longer for it to reassemble itself and come back after them, but two rooms ago, the clicks had been slower, and he just slashed at it once, following on Lotor's heels as they raced back toward the fork where they'd chosen wrong this time.

As they bashed their way through another set of guards and ran into the hallway so fast they hit the wall on the other side, Lance heard a loud crash back toward the entrance. When he cursed, Lotor did, too, and Lance grabbed the prince's hand and pulled him along down the hall, not taking the time to explain that the floor was probably falling in at the entrance, and it would be catching up to them, soon.

Lotor used their linked hands to fling Lance at the next guard that loomed up in front of them, and Lance pulled his feet up to hit the guard straight in the chest, knocking it to the ground, but even as Lotor hauled him back to his feet on his way past, Lance could feel the ground rumbling faintly.

He pushed himself to run faster, keeping up with Lotor stride-for-stride, but the rumbling was getting louder and closer.

They reached another fork, and Lance felt almost dizzy trying to keep a map of the whole place straight in his head. It might not even _be_ mappable. He just needed to make a choice.

Lotor made it for him, running to the right, but they'd only made it a few feet down the hall before the rumbling got so close they could hear the individual sounds of bricks falling down.

Lance glanced over his shoulder, and sure enough, the floor was collapsing behind them, at the fork. This had to be the right way. It _had_ to. There was no going back.

They ran.

Lotor made a longer leap than he should have been able to without a little help from the whip in the game, and Lance followed a second later, trusting Lotor to catch him if he didn't make it.

He didn't.

Lotor pulled him up.

They ran 8 more steps.

They vaulted over a short wall.

It crumbled behind them.

They ran 4 more steps.

The floor collapsed under their feet.

Lance felt himself falling again. He tumbled down into blackness. Into blinding light. Into the jungle outside the door.

He landed on his chest, the air rushing out of him painfully, and gasped to refill his lungs, digging his hands into the ground just to prove to himself that it was solid.

 

* * *

 

Dying this second time wasn't as bad, and Lotor hated the fact that he'd just thought that.

He'd landed on his butt, but his usual impulse to get back to his feet as quickly as possible was outweighed by his relief at having something solid underneath him. Lance seemed to feel the same, pressing his fingers into the soil beside him, and Lotor leaned backward and laid down instead of getting up, breathing deeply as he closed his eyes to feel the ground underneath him, pressing his knapsack into his back.

He wasn't sure how long he and Lance just laid there like that, breathing, but they both knew they couldn't stay here forever, and when Lance rolled over, Lotor forced himself to sit back up.

"Did we die, or just not make it?" Lance asked.

Lotor pulled his pack off and looked into it, chest tightening at the thought of having only one life left. He'd known, instinctively, that they were dying, but having it confirmed was a whole different thing.

He turned the knapsack toward Lance, the single remaining health bar clearly visible in its pocket, next to two other empty pockets.

"Quiznak."

"Indeed."

Lotor felt more words pressing at the inside of his teeth, but he forced them back, clambering to his feet to hide the fact that he wasn't sure he'd managed to keep the nerves off his face.

Lance was digging through his own knapsack, also refusing to look at him. "Oh, crap, yeah, me too. Just have two left."

Lotor held back the words again, but couldn't stop a little half grunt from making its way out of his throat.

Lance looked apologetic. "Sorry, that was, uh - probably not the right thing to say."

Lotor grunted again, because it was better than speaking when being on his feet just reminded him of how shaky his legs had felt after the last time he died. He felt stable, now, but knowing he couldn't die again and come back, knowing another death might mean floating in the blinding whiteness forever, looking out at the paladins' game room, made it hard to trust himself even as his legs held steady.

Lance got to his feet, too, looking at the doors of the temple wordlessly for a moment. A few hours ago, Lotor would have been relieved by the silence, but now it almost echoed. When they weren't fighting or running, Lance usually chattered. The still silence sent a chill down his back and, for once, he opened his mouth to fill it.

"We have to make it this time."

Lance turned toward him, and Lotor was expecting another fake, sunny smile, a little bravado, a blatantly unfounded assertion that they were going to kick ass, and braced himself for the annoyance, but instead, the boy looked serious. "I know."

"I don't want to die." The words slipped out, and he would have stopped them if Lance hadn't surprised him, and he felt his face blushing, but if he looked away, it would just be worse. Weaker.

Lance stepped forward and hugged him again, his wiry arms squeezing tightly around him, and this time he held on long enough for Lotor to reach awkwardly around him and pat him on the shoulder, around the knapsack.

When Lance pulled away, he didn't step as far back as Lotor had expected, staying close and putting a hand on each of his shoulders. His eyes were serious, and his face was serious and this was - something new. Something he hadn't expected even when they were back-to-back, fighting in unison.

"We have to make it this time," Lance said, "We have to, and we will. We already made, like, four wrong turns, so now we don't have to make them again. And we figured out that the temple guards are only in the wrong turn chambers, so we don't have to go so far out of our way."

When Lance put on his usual blinding smile, something in the falseness of it was actually, for once, reassuring. "We're gonna be ok."

Lotor reached up almost instinctively to squeeze Lance's hands where they rested on his shoulders. "Alright."

It _was_ alright. And it wasn't. He'd never understood the boy's false face, but in this moment, he could see the appeal, could see why it didn't bother the others as it had bothered him. The smile wasn't real, but Lance still meant it, somehow. Lotor didn't smile back, but the way the boy's smile widened, just slightly, before he pulled his hands away, told him he didn't need to.

"Are you ready?" the boy asked.

Lotor nodded. It was a lie, that nod, and he thought Lance could probably see through it, but while that would usually be a disaster, here, now, he wasn't sure he minded being looked through. He wasn't sure he minded the lie being a lie, being known for a lie.

Lance's nod in the second before he pushed the door open seemed to accept all of it, both the lie and the fear under it, and as they warped into the temple, five feet inside the door, Lotor found himself returning Lance's brief, half smile before they broke into a sprint, side by side.

 

* * *

 

Making the right turns instead of the wrong ones felt good, but as Lance and Lotor ran up to the fork where they'd died last time, Lance felt his breath getting tight in his chest. They'd gotten here much faster. They'd been able to sprint instead of jogging, knowing where the obstacles were and knowing which way to go at the forks, but now... now they were here, and they had to make it the rest of the way on their own.

He slowed down, but Lotor reached back to grab his hand. "Don't be a coward. We have to go."

The sweat on Lotor's palm took some of the sting out of the criticism and Lance almost laughed, pushing his legs to keep up with Lotor's longer strides as they raced down the hall.

Making it past where they'd been before was a relief, and the large ape that appeared suddenly in front of them where he'd been a little bit afraid there would be a temple guard was another relief, albeit a small one.

They dropped each other's hands, too far away to try a throw like they might in closer quarters, and readied their machetes. Lance remembered feeling weird about taking out cool animals like monkeys, but he'd almost gotten laid out by murderous apes enough times to have gotten over it, and he and Lotor whirled into action without looking at each other.

Lance pulled a sick sliding move, slicing at the ape's legs as Lotor leapt into the air to keep its arms occupied. It stumbled, too unbalanced to get a real hit on Lotor, and Lance popped up on its other side to stab it in the back, watching Lotor duck backward on its other side just before it puffed away into a cloud of smoke.

At the start of the game, he'd wanted to collect as many coins as possible, but with the clock running, it didn't matter. He locked eyes with Lotor, making sure he was ok, and then headed for the next chamber, hoping to make it through to a hallway soon.

They made two lucky turns, and he thought they must be getting close to the end. They _must_. But the next turn wasn't a lucky one, and it was hard to know how long they had and how much they could afford to break the guard's armor up. Lotor severed its helmet from its torso and Lance kicked the helmet as hard as he could, sending it flying to the other end of the room and hoping the time it took for the torso to find the head would be enough to get them on the right path.

Knowing they were pursued upped Lance's stress level, but they couldn't keep looking back. They had to move forward.

"Man, I hate zombie games," he commented as he and Lotor ran up to the fork and started down the opposite hallway, "At least these guards are better than being in a zombie game."

"Zombie?" Lotor asked, stopping before he ran into a trip wire and throwing an arm out across Lance's chest to stop him, too. A set of trap chambers, then. Slower, but safer. Lance allowed himself a grin.

"Yeah," he explained, climbing over the tripwire carefully and looking around for the next trap, "They're these undead people who, like, shuffle around and eat brains and if they bite you then you die and become a zombie too and they just like -" he held his arms out and groaned.

Lotor flipped his whip forward, triggering a trap several feet in front of them. Arrows shot out of the wall beside the spot on the floor he'd pushed down, but landed harmlessly against the opposite wall. "Those don't sound so bad," he answered.

Lance dropped his arms. "It's more scary because they just keep coming. Like the guards. You can do a lot of damage and they just keep coming. But at least you can kill a zombie with a headshot. You can't do that with these guards."

Lotor turned around to check behind them for the guard, and Lance stepped forward, through the trap that had already been triggered, and checked the next bit of wall and floor.

They were both looking back routinely by the time they'd made it halfway through the next room. It was slow going in this room, too, and while the clicks hadn't gone to double speed, Lance was sure they weren't as far ahead of the guard they'd ditched as they were ahead of the timer.

Lotor was looking backward when Lance tripped on a wire closer to the previous trap than he'd expected, falling flat on his face and triggering a rumble inside the wall.

Lotor's head whipped around. "That's odd. Usually, if you don't dive when you hit the wire, you-"

The rumble got closer, and the fact that this wasn't the usual immediate trap didn't make Lance feel any better. He looked around frantically, tuning Lotor out until he could find the source of the rumble.

A large metal door was opening in the ceiling, rolling slowly on some kind of wheels. A door right over the wire, right over where Lotor was still standing. A door he could already see through, just a crack, just enough to know what was about to happen.

He launched himself at Lotor from the ground, pushing as hard as he could, and Lotor flew backward just far enough for the enormous rock to miss him as it fell down from the ceiling.

It missed Lance's head, landing square on his back, but this time, when the air rushed out of his lungs, he couldn't pull it back in. Pain washed over him as he tried to take a breath in spite of his shattered ribs, then dizziness, then a floating feeling that he could only hope was turning into smoke, because anything else didn't bear thinking about.

He flickered into the blinding white space he'd fallen through before, but now he was just floating, breathless, still not right, still not _alive_ , and a wave of terror washed over him before he was - falling.

The top of the rock didn't feel good when he landed on it, the unyielding surface thudding hard into his stomach, but his first breath in was a miracle anyway.

Lotor looked green, but then as Lance pushed himself up to sit on top of the enormous rock, his face burst into a huge smile, the first genuine one Lance had ever seen.

He wanted a moment to breathe. He wanted a moment to tease Lotor about having worried about him. He wanted a lot of things. But the clicking noise of the temple was louder with his head up in the doorway over the rock, and he didn't have the time for those things.

"Come on," he said, reaching an arm down to help Lotor up and over the rock he was trying not to think too hard about, even from on top of it "We've gotta hurry."

Lotor looked startled, but only for a moment, before taking Lance's hand and springing up the side of the rock, then immediately back down the other side.

Lance let Lotor help him down, breathing a little easier as the alien took the opportunity to check him over for injuries, not particularly subtly. They were down to one life each, now. They had to do this together, or not at all. He slipped an arm around Lotor's shoulder, and the disgusted face Lotor made in response was a half second too late to be real.

"I told you," Lance said, "We're gonna be ok."

"You'd better be, paladin. If I'm late for the end 'cause you die again, I'll spend the rest of eternity haunting you."

Lance laughed, stepping cautiously forward and trying to pretend the arm around Lotor's shoulders was part of the joke and not a way of stabilizing himself. "When we _could_ be haunting the whole Castle? Now _you're_ the boring one."

 

* * *

 

Even the clock clicking into double time couldn't keep Lotor's heart from rising at the sight of a huge gold door at the end of the corridor ahead.

"Yes!" Lance half-shouted beside him. The boy was still breathing in bigger gasps than usual, not fully explained by the running, and Lotor was surprised how much of his relief was at the thought of getting the paladin home, and not just about himself. He hadn't liked dying, but he'd adjusted, and Lance was fresh off the penultimate death, and he felt a sudden need to protect him. Strange.

"What do you think's on the other side of this one?" he asked.

Lance shrugged. "Hopefully, home!"

They'd separated when they needed to, to fight their way here, but here in front of the door, Lance stood close again. Maybe there was something behind the door. Maybe there wasn't. Either way, they'd do it together.

"Ready?" he asked.

Lance nodded, laying a hand on the door. Lotor laid his hand next to Lance's, and they pushed it open together.

As they warped five feet into the room, the ticking stopped, but there weren't any crashing sounds. They seemed safe. Too safe. Lotor didn't like it.

Lance whistled, and the sound echoed faintly in the empty room. There was a chest in the center of the room, on top of a pedestal and directly under a skylight. It was bright gold, shining like a beacon, and as Lance shifted his weight, Lotor reached out to grab his elbow.

"Bro," Lance said, "I'm not an idiot. I wasn't gonna just go for it, either."

They both studied the room, but nothing stood out as a trap. There was nothing to fight. There was nothing to climb. He was afraid, but he wasn't sure what to be afraid of. The room was deadly silent, terrifyingly quiet after the persistent clicking of the rest of this final temple run.

Lotor wanted to ask what to do, but Lance was still breathing funny beside him, slow and deep and intentional, and he could remember the surreal first moments of being alive again after feeling himself die, and Lance hadn't had any slow, living moments until right now, and he could wait. Couldn't he? He adjusted his grip on the handle of his whip, waiting for something to change.

Lance's head moved as he noticed the motion, and Lotor couldn't bring himself to fake a smile, not when it would be so obviously false, so he elbowed the paladin in the side instead, earning a grin that was at least half real in response.

"There are probably, like, two real options," Lance said, "Either the music we can't hear is really super happy and triumphant, and we're standing here like idiots in an empty room, or that pedestal is booby trapped."

Lotor nodded. "And if it's booby trapped?"

"Then I guess whoever opens it dies." He said it like it was nothing, like it was a joke, but his hand was balled up in a fist and Lotor suspected it was to hide the shaking.

"Could we open it off the pedestal?" he asked, "I could try to pull it over here with the whip."

Lance gasped. "No! I mean, yeah! But no!" For a moment, Lotor felt a smile pulling at the corner of his mouth as the normal, usual, rambling Lance reappeared, but he quashed it just in time for the paladin to turn to him and say, "We're gonna Indiana Jones it."

He looked excited, and like himself, and Lotor feigned excitement. "Great! How do we do that?"

Lance's grin came out a little sideways, and he glanced over his shoulder at the chest before leaning in to whisper, "How much do you think a solid gold chest weighs?"

Lotor's eyebrow shot up. "It depends on what's in it, but-"

"Pretty close to the weight of, oh, say, _a backpack_ , right?" Lance interrupted.

"I guess, but-"

"No, trust me, this is it! We've just gotta swap them out _very carefully_ , so the pedestal doesn't get pushed down or let up. The old Indy switcheroo."

Lotor narrowed his eyes. "I suppose that is possible, but we had best be careful going over there, in case it's not the only trap. We'll know better when we can see it close up."

Lance nodded, "Yeah, got it. I still say it's gonna be Indiana Jones, though. Oh man, I've seen that movie like 20 times." Lotor had no idea what to make of that, but Lance had started moving, and he couldn't just leave him to cross the room alone, even if a big part of him thought he should.

They crossed the room close together, but nothing happened until they were within arm's reach of the chest, when it suddenly opened, an enormous golden medallion rising from its depths in a familiar golden light. It looked like the front of the temple door, and it had to be what they'd come here for.

Lance laughed next to him, and Lotor knew he was thinking the same thing - they'd second-guessed themselves over nothing. They'd already won. And if they hadn't? Lance was reaching for the medallion, so it was too late. Lotor reached for it too, their fingers closing around it at the same time.

He felt some kind of power running up his arms, and for a moment, he was certain he was dying, but then he could feel himself starting to stretch instead of puffing away into smoke, and this time when everything went white, he could feel himself moving through it, could feel Lance beside him, and then they were standing in front of the couch in the game room, their backs to the game they'd just come out of.

Lance laughed again, and when the paladin flung his arms around him, Lotor hugged back right away this time, squeezing Lance tightly enough to feel that his breath had finally, _finally_ gone back to normal instead of coming in weird intentional gulps.

Lance let go of the hug, but then reached up and grabbed Lotor's shoulders instead. "We did it!"

"We did!" he answered, putting his own hands on Lance's shoulders. The boy's eyes twinkled, and Lotor blocked Lance's hand before the boy could shove his head sideways, stepping back out of the way and twisting sideways to get the right angle for a hip check to Lance's side.

 

* * *

 

Coran was just about done with his last double-check of the Castle to make sure everything was back in order, when he heard a loud thump in the paladins' game room. It had been empty before, which had been mildly irritating, given that he'd hoped to find Lance still there and available to help fix things, but as he got closer, the noises got louder and it was more obvious that it wasn't empty now.

He opened the door to find Lance and Lotor wrestling on the floor in front of the couch, which they'd apparently bumped into hard enough to scoot it back at an angle. They both looked up at him, untangling with a cheesy grin on Lance's part and a slight blush on Lotor's.

"What have you two been up to?" he asked.

"Celebrating!" Lance answered, "We won!"

Lotor pulled himself to his feet, pulling his clothes back into order and lifting his chin, and Coran was almost sad to see it. "I was informed that participating in social bonding rituals with the paladins would help the team function more smoothly."

Coran raised an eyebrow. "But did you have fun?" he asked.

"Of course we did!" Lance answered, before Lotor could get a word in. The paladin sprang quickly to his feet. "We won!"

Coran smiled, "Well, that's good, then. You've had your fun, and now you can help me clean up the ship."

Lance groaned, sinking melodramatically into Lotor's side for a moment, and when the Galra didn't immediately push him away or look offended, Coran turned quickly on his heel to hide his own smile. Bonding, indeed. He still wasn't sure whether to trust Lotor or not, but it was good to see the young people more relaxed around each other, either way. He only hoped it could last.


End file.
